Suzanne Rivera to Be the First Woman to Lead Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota

Suzanne Rivera will be the seventeenth president of Macalester College, the highly rated liberal arts educational institution in St. Paul, Minnesota. When she takes office this summer, Dr. Rivera will be the first woman to lead the college.

Macalester College enrolls just under 2,200 students according to the latest data supplied to the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 60 percent of the student body.

In accepting the appointment, Dr. Rivera said that “it is an incredible honor and privilege to join the Macalester family. This is a community where curious people thrive, where individuality is celebrated, and where the purpose of education is to equip students with tools to make an impact in the wider world.”

Dr. Rivera currently serves as vice president for research and technology management at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Earlier in her career, she held executive-level research posts at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the University of California, Irvine.

Dr. Rivera is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she majored in American civilization. She holds a master’s degree in social welfare from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in public affairs from the University of Texas at Dallas.